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Yarn Art

It’s all the rage. It is. House and Home said so in their latest edition!

A couple of years ago I learned to knit. I had always wanted to learn and was up for the challenge. So my friend HL and I clipped off to community school in the dead of winter to learn how to knit. There we sat, in my old English classroom, amongst all the ladies learning how to knit, I the only male. And no, we weren’t there for the lunch of cubed cheddar cheese and apple juice. We really wanted to learn how to knit! Learning how to knit isn’t easy. It takes practice, patience and a good mentor. I was fortunate to have or found all of these things. Well, maybe not the patience. Not a particularly patient person, although I try.

My best friend SJR is an avid, if not obsessive, knitter. A good number of people in her family are including her cousin, or cousint, RAB. RAB is an amazing knitter and was gracious enough to take me under her knitting needled wing. RAB spent many hours fixing my mistakes, coaching me and taking frantic phone calls from the yarn shop (IHAVENOIDEAWHATTHESYMBOLONTHELABELMEANS). Under RAB’s tutelage I learned to knit, and well. RAB has become a good friend, confidant and special advisor to The Empire. She knows all our secrets!

The swatch you see in the photo above was knit by me. I had a grand idea of making a scarf out of this yarn and pattern. However, as you can see, a “scarf” of this size could easily double as a horse blanket. I abandoned ship before finishing yet couldn’t rip apart the piece due to the amount of work that had gone into it – the cabling mostly. So, this piece sat in my knitting box for months on end until I came across an article in House and Home that spoke of yarn art. Amazing! My piece, and hard work, has been saved.

In classic RAB fashion she brought over push-pins yesterday to help mount the yarn art in its shadow box; its new home. RAB had to bring over push pins because our house is shockingly disorganized right now and there would be no hope in hell of push-pins anywhere in the house. Why was I wanting to make yarn art instead of organizing, you ask? Denial. And I felt the yarn art would feed my soul more… at that moment, anyway.

So, voila! A piece of art made by me and for our new home. C says it is going to hang in the kitchen. I can’t wait to have it surround us and have an opportunity to admire it every day. I also can’t wait for you to be exposed to RAB and her home, do-it-yourself, prowess. Keep your eyes peeled, she just may be the next guest writer here at The Empire.

What a great idea and I admire your knitting abilities! I tried knitting back in the day, however did NOT have the patience, so needless to say ‘knit one, pearl two’ was just not in the cards for me. Might pick up this craft one of these days.